Clinical psychology patients in Perth have had to wait as long as 20 months for an appointment, the Perthshire Advertiser can reveal.

NHS Tayside recorded 39 breaches of waiting time limits for Perth community mental health, with 87 weeks being the longest anyone had to wait.

A spokesperson for Dundee health and social care partnership, which manages the clinical psychology service in Tayside, said: “We have been experiencing some challenges around waiting times for clinical psychology due to a combination of workforce issues and a significant increase in demand.

“In order to address this, we developed an improvement plan to reconfigure the service and have successfully recruited to a vacant consultant psychologist post.

“These actions have had a positive impact on our waiting times and helped improve access to services.

“All patients in Perth city community mental health team who have been waiting longer than the national standard will be offered an appointment over the next three months and, by the end of June, all patients should be seen within the 18 week standard.”

Jeane Freeman MSP, cabinet secretary for health and sport

The Scottish Government has said improving mental health is a priority for them.

Jeane Freeman MSP, cabinet secretary for health and sport, told the PA: “We have made a commitment to providing 800 mental health workers. We are on track to deliver that.

“There are other ways of doing this and we need to look at that.

“Upskilling the nursing profession is one way so that nurses are working to the top of their licences.”

The Mid-Scotland and Fife MSP said: “To be informed that some patients in Perth had to wait a year and a half for mental health treatment is totally unacceptable.

“It is ludicrous for someone with clinical psychological problems to wait 87 weeks to be seen by medical staff.

“These figures state that NHS Tayside has recorded 39 breaches of waiting time limits for Perth community mental health. The health board has said they have had staffing issues but surely this is an issue that needs swift action to address.”

Murdo Fraser, MSP for Mid-Scotland and Fife

A spokesperson for mental health charity the Scottish Association for Mental Health (SAMH) recently said: “When we are feeling low or anxious, many of us find it useful to talk to someone.

“This is why psychological therapies – treatments for mental health which are based around talking to a specially trained therapist – are often recommended by official medical guidance for people struggling with their mental health.

“Scotland was the first country in the world to set waiting times targets for psychological therapies, but the 18-week target is still not being met by all NHS boards, eight years after it was first introduced.

“This quarter, we saw no change in the percentage of people being seen within 18 weeks, and just one NHS board met the target.”

Billy Watson, chief executive of SAMH said: “Our research shows that the faster people get access to psychological therapies, the more they will benefit